Goodbye sydney

Sailing into Sydney Harbor

This is one of the finest harbors in the world. We were up at 5:15 as you can feel the changes in the ship’s motion when it is waiting for the pilot to come on board. It was very dark but you could see the lights of Sydney in the distance.

I wanted to take a panorama of the harbor as we sailed in but it was too dark. The Opera House was not lit up as it was last time. Instead of berthing between the Opera House and the Hanger, we went under the Hanger. I suspect the ship must come and go with low tide as there wasn’t an inch of extra space at the top of the ship as we went under the bridge.

Photos from moving ship

Disappointingly they will never be good as the motion of the sea, the ship’s engines, etc. mean you’ll never get a good crisp shot.

Immigration

They went pretty quickly actually. There were four women: two looked white bread, one appeared to be Maori, and one in a hijab. Wehad to present our passport, cruise card, entry card for Australia, Departure card for Australia, and the letter with instructions. When we passed muster, we got a transit card we carry when on land in Australia. Then our cruise card was scanned and a sticker put on it to show we had passed immigration. Now we werefree.

Off for the day

So we disembarked which involves going to deck 3, having our cruise card scanned and making it down the gangplank. However, today there was a medical evacuation so we were somewhat delayed. It was a man with whom we had lunch yesterday from Montreal. He does missionary work now and then and had a sweet disposition. But he was morbidly obese. They were getting off here anyway to spend a few days sightseeing before returning home on a long 36 hour ordeal. I hope all works out well for them

Shuttle

We lament the fact that this berth is 25 min from the central area of Sydney over the large suspension bridge. We were, however, lucky enough to catch the shuttle right away or we would have lost another 30 min. This shuttle is free and I presume the merchants support it. Our morning driver was chipper with lots of info as we went along.

We were dropped off at the foot of the coat hanger bridge and some folks went up to walk it. If you go over the top it costs over $150 Aussie. (exchange rate today: $1 USD = !.3 Aus dollars).

Hop o Hop off.

We save our receipts (I have them from September in Rekyavik) as you get a 10% discount in the next large city with such a bus. They knew nothing about this in Auckland, nor here today. However we got the senior discount which turned out better. Also it was cheaper than if we had been successful in our frustrating attempts to order them in advance online yesterday. Still I clutch these receipts; who knows: they might come in handy eventually.

Unlike our experience on other hop on hop off busses, this one spent a long time at several stops so a ride that should have taken 90 min was over 1 ½ hrs.

Eventually we got off at Chinese gardens stop and walked a few blocks to find Paddy’s Market which was described as a fun adventure and shopping expedition (they’d starve if they relied on us). We wound up at market city where they had free Wifi but it was of little use to us as we have so many things that need to be downloaded and backed up. This place had few round eyes and all merchants seemed to be Asian. All the food offerings were varieties of not-very-good Asian food but we did need to eat by this time. All I can say is it was food. Then we looked at a few not very interesting shops and finally asked where was Paddy’s Market. In the basement as it turns out. So we saw all manner of very fresh looking foods with prices to match.

Internet Café

A lot of our time was spent trying to find an Internet Café. I’ll spare you this saga but reassure you it was fruitless and frustrating.

By the end of all of this, we were sweaty and frustrated. Sparing you all the gory details, I just wish a certain person who shall remain nameless would explicitly state what he really wants to do cleary instead of waiting until the last minute to pout and then say he really wanted to go to Darling Harbor. Sigh…

Back to ship

We met to American girls who leave tomorrow on the Ruby Princess for Auckland and then back to US. They were cheery and delightful. THEIR ship has OUR berth! So we went to great lengths to tell them how lucky they are. Finally the hop on bus arrived (no schedule was ever found by anyone; likely it depends on the mood of the driver?) and we stayed in the air conditioned section this time, not up on top where you have glorious views but fry in this sun.

At the shuttle stop

We had a fun conversation with the supervisor who is originally from the Netherlands, met a German woman here when he worked on the Olympics, and so here he is 2 kids later.

Back on boards

New house coats were laid out but our old terry cloth ones are still here. Ed does not like the new ones so I’ll keep you posted on how this plays out. These are not terry cloth but they are heavier for what it’s worth.

More connectivity challenges

We have found that we can update our apps v e r y   v e r y   slowly but only one at a time. I have 39 waiting to be updated; Ed has in excess of 100. Neither of us has backed up our iCloud accounts since we left LA so we are a little concerned in case we lose our device.

We have LTE on the ship right now as we are in harbor but once we leave we are back at the mercy of our slow ship’s internet account where we must hoard our minutes to make it from port to port. Ah the challenges of modern life.

Weather

Is now overcast and dreary. It may rain on the sail away in which case I will again be disappointed at the scene as we sail under the coat hanger and past the opera house.

Sniffer dogs

In Auckland, the police had a beagle. Cute little guy. Busy but steady advancing along our line of legs subtly sniffing for contraband. NZ was VERY strict about fruits etc AND water had to be commercially bottled with an intact seal.

Today it was a more (hyper)active Black Lab. Determined and somewhat distracted but doing a good job. I think they are amazing.

Sail Away

Being at the front of the ship definitely had some advantages for this sail away. We got to see the tugs and the staff as they piloted this ship around the curve of Darling Harbor and underneath the Coat Hanger (Harbor) Bridge. There were a lot of folks at the top of the bridge as we went under and the ship blew it’s horn it seemed louder than usual. That must have resonated on their soles pretty good.

We have new neighbors

Many folks got off in Sydney and this evening Kathy and Michael introduced themselves to us. They are aussies and have the cabin next door. On the sailaway, Frances and Randy were on the balcony with us and we were all 6 having great conversations as the aussies served as our tour guides out of the channel.

Tonight’s entertainment

The cousin of the wonderful Kiwi singer of the other evening (or so the other guy said). This fellow is 7 ft. tall and looks much more Maori than the first. His voice is entirely different and rather unexpected. He is sweet and has a pleasant voice but the first cousin just blew us away.

Tomorrow

We are at sea and we see from the Patter that we now have a decent expert speaker on board who’s topic is about WWII topic. Yeah! I hope he doesn’t disappoint. I’ve had enough of the supersales woman for the touchy feely products. Ok you can criticize me but really, it was overkill and with almost no substance. I don’t mind mind/body (excuse the pun)subjects but with some research findings behind them if you don’t mind instead of case studies of one.